New service aims to shield solar panels from hail

Extreme hail events have caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage at solar PV projects in North America, even in areas historically less prone to hailstorms.

It is estimated that in Texas alone, hail has caused more than US$600 million of damage in the past two to three years. The increase in resulting damage, as well as new uncertainty about hail-prone areas, has prompted changes to insurance policies and threatens the financial viability of solar projects in these regions.

Independent energy consultant and assurance provider DNV has launched a new service to address this issue, providing solar photovoltaic developers with actionable, verified assessments of large hail risk across North America. The company has partnered with Jupiter Intelligence, which specialises in climate risk analytics, to offer a robust statistical approach to evaluating hail risk due to climate change, both today and in the future.

According to research published in Nature, hailstorm severity is set to increase with further climate change.¹ Historical data no longer provides an accurate assessment of hail risk, especially when it comes to the size of the hail and the location of the hailstorms. Recent research on hail patterns indicates that over the last few decades, severe hail events have shifted northward in the central and eastern US, to areas with a high density of installed solar PV.

DNV’s new service aims to help the solar industry understand actual hail risk now and over the course of project lifetimes, up to 30 years into the future. It will provide the probability of a hail event for a specific location within the contiguous US as well as the probability of the size of the hail itself, enabling project owners and developers to better anticipate and mitigate risks to their projects.

“Ironically, solar development is now threatened by the thing it is meant to mitigate — climate change — by enabling a transition to clean energy generation,” said Richard S Barnes, Region President for Energy Systems North America at DNV.

“Understanding and mitigating risks from hailstorms with both technical and financial means will enable the solar industry to continue its current trajectory and take its place as a major source of energy in the future.”

_{1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-020-00133-9}

Image credit: iStock.com/Jasmina81